Since releasing the Pyro solid state drive back in 2011, Patriot seemed to have backed away from the SSD market to instead focus mainly on computer memory, Flash and portable devices accessories. However, Patriot recently released a trio of SSD drives and seems more intent than ever to jump back into the SSD arena in force. Branded the Torch, Blaze, and Ignite, these new products leverage the new Phison controllers and select NAND memory from third party manufacturers with the promise of great performance at an affordable price.

Today I will be looking at the Ignite, which sits in the middle of the new SSD product lineup from Patriot. The Ignite comes in two capacities, 480GB and 960GB. The review sample we have on hand is the 480GB model, built around the new Phison PS3110-S10 controller and using asynchronous 16nm MLC NAND from Micron. The sequential performance of the drive is rated at 560MB/s read and 545MB/s write, with 4K random read/write IOPS of 80K/75K IOPs.

At the time of writing, the Patriot Ignite 480GB SSD retails for about $190 and is readily available through the usual online channels. It's a great price considering the storage capacity and generous feature set of this new drive from Patriot. Let's dig deeper and see how the Ignite performs.